The French Admiral

'Not well at all, sir, mostly in his mind,' Alan breathed out, not catching any sign of true awareness in Treghues's voice or expression. 'And Mrs. Chiswick, well… she may be in good health, but she is not a person meant for adversity, if you get my meaning.'

'That poor young girl,' Treghues said, with such emotion that Alan thought him ready to shudder. 'Forced to cope with all that, barely a penny to their names from all that land and property stolen from them by the Rebels, taking care of her parents so dutifully…'

'It's a da… a terrible shame, sir, and a burden I marvel she could bear for long,' Alan agreed. 'Did you know that her brother, Burgess, told me the principal rogues who turfed them out were their own cousins?'

'Were they?' Treghues said, stopping their perambulations and seizing Alan's sleeve with an iron grip. 'Were they, indeed, sir? God, I pity those who could not flee retribution of that pack of Rebels! What sort of country can they hope to have, built on the blood of their betters, allowing just any fool the right to vote, dictated to by the mob and resorting to bloody revolution and civil strife at the merest trifles. We'll have to go back in and restore order some day when they find they cannot govern such a herd of malcontents. How shall they collect taxes when they would not pay what they owed the Crown? How often shall they call out the militia or the troops sworn to this rebellious Congress to put down a new outbreak? You mark my words, within ten years they'll be cheering the sight of a scarlet coat to save them from their egregious folly. I only pray the Chiswicks get away safely to England and are spared the abuse and frightfulness of the mob's fury.'

'They have relatives in Surrey, sir. There was talk they may take passage if Charleston is threatened,' Alan said, wondering if he should try to break loose, for Treghues was gripping him so hard he was fearful for his arm. 'Though what they'll use for money, I don't know.'

'Aye,' Treghues almost sobbed, turning Alan loose and resuming their walk toward the taffrail. 'I lent them one hundred pounds. I hope it is enough. My heart went out to her… and her family. Had I only the means to rescue every loyal Briton who escaped… Do you know the name of their relatives in Surrey?'

'No, sir, I'm sorry, I don't. Chiswick, I should think, though, sir, same as them,' Alan replied, massaging his arm on the sly.

'Should you ever hear from them, I would be deeply obliged to you if you let me know their address, Mister Lewrie. There is much I could do for them if only I was allowed,' Treghues ordered, then looked off into the middle distance. 'I feel it my Christian duty as a God-fearing man, as a Briton, to help at least that family, if I cannot do for all of the unfortunates torn loose from all they held dear by this terrible war.'

'Oh, I shall, sir,' Alan promised, lying like a butcher's dog. He tried to keep a straight and uninterested face as Treghues peered at him.

Alan found it hard, even so, to look Treghues in the eyes, but that was alright, for the captain also got a shifty look and could not face him, either.

'Thank you, Mister Lewrie. That shall be all. Again, my congratulations on your good news from home. Return to your duties, sir.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Poor shit, he thought. Mooning away over the girl and having to finagle her whereabouts from a rogue like me must have half killed his soul. He's getting devilish strange, even worse than before. And that funny tobacco he smokes now, whew! God knows where Mr. Dorne found it, but it has to be medicinal as hell, like smoking mildew and oakum. God, if there's a sane captain in the Navy, I've yet to meet him. Command must drive you loony!

Alan realized that sooner or later he would have to tell Treghues the Chiswicks' address, if only to retain the captain's favor, but damned if he'd enjoy doing it. It was rather confusing, the feelings he had for Lucy Beauman, the most perfect beauty of the age he had seen, and Caroline Chiswick, who was pretty in her own quiet way. He still could not call it jealousy, but he was a lot closer to that opinion than he had been before.

'Hull up now, sir,' Railsford said with a hint of concern.

Alan turned to look aft and could see all the sails of their pursuer, with the hint of a darker streak now and then above the waves that would be her hull. He took hold of the hilt of his sword and gave it a hitch to a more comfortable position. He might be using it in an hour.

'British, by God!' Monk spoke suddenly, as a distant patch of color appeared on the stranger's foremast top.

'Mister Monk, I weary of correcting your unfortunate habit of taking our Lord's name in vain so frequently,' Treghues said for the thousandth time. 'It may be a ruse.'

'Signal, sir!' the lookout called, and David Avery was sent aloft with a glass and the signal book to spy it out.

'Recognition signal, sir!' he screamed down minutes later. 'This month's! Tis Roebuck, sir, her private number!'

'Hands been fed, Mister Railsford?' Treghues asked.

'Aye, sir.'

'Douse the galley fires and clear for action, just in case.'

'Aye, sir.'

But the stranger was indeed Roebuck, one of the ship-rigged sloops of war that had accompanied them on their raid on the Danish Virgins back in the late summer of 1781. She surged up close and her captain took up a brass speaking trumpet to speak to Desperate.

'What lit a fire under you, Captain?' Treghues shouted, with his leather lungs and cupped hands around his mouth in lieu of a trumpet.

'The French, Captain Treghues!' the other retorted. 'Thirty sail of the line and a transport fleet have fallen on St. Kitts!'

'Jesus!' Alan muttered. St. Kitts was part of a pair of islands, Nevis and St. Kitts, that were not a day's sail from Antigua, and Antigua was the main base of the Leeward Islands. Admiral de Grasse was wasting no time in making use of his splendid fleet after returning to the Indies from the Chesapeake and Yorktown. Lewrie frowned in depression as he thought of his last few months; a failed opportunity at the Chesapeake battle, the loss of England's last field army at Yorktown, the evacuation of Wilmington, and the rumors of a revitalized Rebel army under General Greene closing in on Charleston; now this disaster. If the French took St. Kitts, Nevis was barely five miles across a safe channel. Then what came next, English Harbor? They had already retaken St. Eustatius, Admiral Rodney's treasure trove. If Antigua went, there went the Indies.

'They struck two days ago, on the eleventh,' Roebuck's captain was continuing to shout. 'Anchored off Basse Terre and marched on Brimstone Hill. They're holding out so far. I am to carry word to Hood off Barbados.'

'God speed you, then!' Treghues called back. 'We shall follow as best we are able!'

He turned back to them with a hard expression on his face. 'Well, gentlemen, we have been here before, have we not? It seems we must deal with this devil de Grasse one more time to rescue a British army as we attempted in the Chesapeake. This time they may have bitten off more than they can chew. Brimstone Hill is on a high cliff ten miles march from Basse Terre Roads, and the island is not big enough to support a large land force by foraging as the Virginias supported Rochambeau and Washington. Brimstone Hill is a proper stone fortress, well stocked with artillery and powder. Their fleet must wait for results ashore, and when Admiral Hood lights into them this time, there will be no timidity such as we saw from Admiral Graves. We shall see something wonderful then, and we'll square this Frog's yards for him for good and all this time! Questions?'

'May I get off here, sir?' Alan quipped, only half kidding, though everyone treated his comment as a jest only, laughing heartily and calling him the very devil of a merry wag and other such complimentary comments.

'To your stations. Stand the hands down from quarters, Mister Railsford, and send them aloft to make sail, all the sail Desperate'll fly. Should Roebuck fall across the hawse of a French ship or fail in her mission, then we may also carry word to Admiral Hood.'

Good Christ Almighty, Alan thought sadly. It's not as if I haven't done enough already, is it? There's only so many times I can put myself in the line of fire before I get knackered, and if it's only going to be half as bad as that muddle up in Virginia, then I'm a dead man this time. A very wealthy dead man, at that. Just when things were turning sweet for once. Just when I thought life was giving me a fair hand at last!

Realizing there was nothing for it but to go game, he went forward to Mister Monk's side by the wheel. At least, he could appear enthusiastic.